In the Beginning
I should probably mention that I do see my doctor regularly about my weight loss. It started out something like this. Me: “Doctor, I keep eating less, but I keep gaining weight.” Doctor: “You are getting older and it is harder to lose weight. You may need to eat fewer calories and exercise more.” DUH! I know I’m old and cannot eat as much as I once could. Did I mention I hate exercise? So he did some blood tests to make me feel better, and went over some healthy eating guidelines. Everything was pretty much normal, so it was all up to me. I decided I would eliminate prepackaged food(high in calories and chemicals), pasta, sweets, and most breads. I say most breads, because I have a piece of toast almost every day for breakfast. Is it boring? Maybe. But I have migraines, more specifically, I wake up with migraines in the early morning hours or I develop them early in the day. My morning piece of cinnamon toast feels ‘right’. It does not aggravate a migraine, and it does not bring on a migraine. So many other foods will give me a migraine in the morning- juice, eggs, bagels, oatmeal, many cereals, bacon, pancakes, the list goes on. So I stick with my toast and it makes me happy. The best thing is, I do not wake up with migraines very often anymore. I discovered this last summer when I started my eating plan. And I had spent the previous summer waking up with a migraine every single morning. No medication change – just a change in eating habits. So what has caused this radical change? I can only think it has something to do with sugar and gluten. I also found if I “fell off the wagon,” so to speak (like at Christmas), the migraines returned and stayed around for several weeks. The ole’ doctor said those chemicals can take a while to work out of my system. He was as surprised as I was that my migraines had pretty much gone away. I’d like to go off my daily medications, but I’m a little paranoid yet. I can always tell if I eat something bad for me, because it will eventually give my migraine.
